Blood Rose
by Berrybanana05
Summary: It's a month after Hermione Granger has managed to slip into the Knights' ranks and Riddle isn't quite sure what to make of her. She's very, very valuable to his cause. So valuable, in fact, that when she contracts a particularly bad cough in the first week of October, Riddle takes notice. She waves away his inquisitive comments and tells him she'll be fine in a week. She isn't.


It's a month after Hermione Granger has managed to slip into the Knights' ranks and Riddle isn't quite sure what to make of her.  
She's witty, extremely intelligent (always a hair behind him in the class rankings), unpredictable, terrifyingly good in a duel, and unlike every girl he's ever met before. In short, she's very, very valuable to his cause. So valuable, in fact, that when she contracts a particularly bad cough in the first week of October, Riddle takes notice.  
She waves away his inquisitive comments and his eyebrow raises and tells him she'll be fine in a week.  
She isn't.

He catches her weeks later hiding in an alcove on the way to Astronomy. His first thought is that she's in there with someone else (as is typical anywhere with a sufficient concentration of hormonal teenagers) but as he hears her coughs he quickly comes to the conclusion she is alone.  
"Granger?"  
She stiffens at his tone, wild hair framing her abnormally pale face.  
"Riddle?"  
He nods and ducks into the alcove, casting a simple 'notice-me-not' spell.  
"Are you quite alright, Miss Granger?"  
_He can't have one of his knights fall ill, especially not the most competent one he's managed to procure.  
_"I'm fine-" she tries, but she breaks off into another round of hacking coughs, her whole body shaking. He regards her with a slight sense of irritation which shifts into alarm as she staggers forwards, stumbling into his arms.  
"Granger?!"  
The witch shudders again and he looks around him, searching for one of his knights, a professor, anyone he can dump the witch on. The corridor is deserted.  
He sighs.  
_I have not had enough coffee this morning to deal with this._

Her coughs slowly subside and she extracts herself from his arms, face flushed. He can't tell whether it's from embarrassment or all that coughing- perhaps both.  
She opens her mouth, "I-"  
He interrupts her, unamused.  
"Do not test me, Granger. The safety of my Knights is of paramount importance for while I am more than capable of achieving my goals without a single one of you, you are all useful in... unique ways. You lied to me- there is clearly more to this 'cold' than you're letting on."  
A hesitant smile tugs at her lips- it's almost amusing how worked up he is over something so simple as a cough- if she didn't know his future, she might almost think he cared.  
She meets his eyes- something few of the knights dare to do, something that stirs curiosity from within him (is she not afraid of him? Sure, she's seen worse in the war but do his subtle threats have no effect?)- and smiles thinly, the expression inches from a glare.  
_Defiant as always. _He should punish her for that, he should put her in her place as he should've done long ago but as always, something stays his hand.

With a twitch of her wand a silencing spell envelops them- a procedure that every other knight would've forgotten. Irritation twists in his chest.  
"I apologise, my Lord." She bows her head. "I didn't wish to inconvenience you. I merely-"  
She coughs again, and something flies from between her lips, dancing through the air to land at his feet.  
Her eyes widen. His brow furrows.  
He kneels and she quickly follows suit, their eyes fixed on it, the world frozen around them as they stare.  
Lying between them on the cold stone brick is a small red petal.  
"Granger." His tone is barely level, barely calm. "What is this?"  
She swallows and their eyes meet again.  
"I-Uh- A group of Ravenclaws hexed me on the way to Herbology, I've been coughing up flower petals… All week."  
It's a lie and they both know it. His eyes narrow and he snatches the petal from the ground.

"Their names?"  
He doesn't miss the worry that flashes across her features and he smirks.  
At least she clearly knows what he's capable of.  
"Really, Riddle, it's fine-"  
"Names."  
He wonders how far she'll go to uphold her lie. Allow him to torture innocents? He's seen cruelty flicker in her brown eyes before but such an occurrence is a rarity.  
Something hardens in her tone.  
"My Lord, I've dealt with it."  
She meets his eyes like no other Knight would ever dare to do.  
He glares at her.  
"You dare question me?"  
Her face scrunches up like discarded wrapping paper and he fights a smirk.  
He waits, letting the ghost of his warning tone hang in the air.  
Somehow, she still manages to keep her cool.  
"Of course not, my Lord. I merely wish to inform you that there's no need for you to take action- I have more than dealt with the culprits. I'm perfectly capable you know."  
"Of that I have no doubt. Names, Granger. Or it will not be them facing the consequences."  
For a moment, her eyes light up and he questions her sense of self-preservation. But then, with great reluctance, she gives him two names.  
His glare softens into a dangerous smile.  
"There. That wasn't so difficult, now, was it?"

He steps from the alcove, wand spinning between his fingers.  
He's thinking- she can tell.  
"What will you do to them?" She asks as if she doesn't already know the answer.  
He waits for a moment, stretching her agony as long as he dares.  
"Nothing."  
He can practically feel her surprise.  
"N-nothing?"  
"Nothing." He confirms, grinning now. "Don't make me repeat it, Granger, I know you aren't simple." Then his expression darkens.  
"Do not lie to me again. Sort out whatever this problem of yours is and do it soon."  
With that he cancels the spells and offers his arm, the picture of the perfect head boy offering to escort the 'helpless' witch to her class.  
"Now I'd best be escorting you to class, Miss Granger."  
Hermione steps from the shadows, confusion clear in her honey eyes and takes his arm with much less complaint than the last hundred times.  
"I- Alright then. Thank you, Mr Riddle."  
"It's a pleasure."

He leaves her at her class and all seems resolved but for the life of him he cannot get the sight of that petal flying from her lips out of his mind.  
He pulls the thing from his pocket- somehow uncrushed- and studies it for a moment. Then he heads to the library. It's not like he can really salvage this lesson, as late as he is, and with a bit of carefully applied charm he can smooth it over with the professor in minutes. Besides, he read this chapter of the textbook months ago.

_Just what are you hiding from me, Hermione Granger? _

* * *

He drops the book, loose pages flying from the spine as it hits the ground.  
_No. It's impossible. It's not even real-  
_It has to be wrong.  
But the words stare up at him from the page, bold and unmistakable.

**_Hanahaki Disease- the fatal curse of unrequited love.  
_**_When the victim loves someone at a soul-deep level (platonically or romantically) and their love is unrequited, their magic may respond to their agony, creating flowers that bloom in their lungs and if left uncured or untreated, will kill the victim.  
__The death is slow and agonising and there are only two known cures in existence._

_...If he ever needed a reason to believe love is a weakness, this is it. _

He reads the text detailing the treatments and his heart settles. Surely it can't be that difficult to force some idiotic fool to fall in love with the brainy bombshell that is Hermione Granger?  
She's smart, witty and talented. If he was forced to give an assessment of her physical features, he would suppose that she was fairly beautiful too, as girls go.  
He's fine. It's all fine.  
Then he thinks of her face, drawn and flushed from coughing and the panicked feeling returns. He all but flees the library, book flying back to its shelf with a flick of his wand.  
He tells himself his fear is natural, that he cannot afford to lose a follower like her.

_He is right, but not for the reasons he thinks._

* * *

Riddle finds her in the corridor. She watches him. His face is set in a cold, polite mask but his pale green eyes are lit with a light she's only seen once before. He's worried- deeply worried.  
Hermione is instantly on edge- what on earth could unsettle a man like him as easily as this?

He moves across the corridor towards her, cutting through the crowd like a hawk through the air but she's swept away towards her next class, throwing him an apologetic look over her shoulder.  
Their eyes meet for the briefest of moments before she loses him in the throng of people.  
She can't exactly say she's displeased to avoid him- he's _Voldemort_ for Merlin's sake- but at least his wit, his charm and the strain of keeping up her prejudiced pureblood act (a strain that lessens with each day much to her horror) keep her mind sharp and focused, firmly on staying alive and completing the mission rather than on _them_-  
And just like that she's thinking of them.

They flicker in her mind, the boys she loves until it hurts, the boys who she's formed such a close bond with. Of her friends she's left behind, the family she has abandoned in her attempts to save them. Her throat begins to tickle again and she fights it off but the tickle grows to flames and her throat is on fire, agony lacing through her lungs until she gives in. _Harry, grinning at her like she'd hung the moon in the sky because she's figured it out yet again._ She drags in greedy gulps of air just as fast as she expels it, chest heaving as she coughs and hacks and spits. _Ron, standing up in front of Harry on his broken leg, shouting at Sirius that he'd would have to kill him first because he'd never let harm come to his best friend.  
_Hermione collapses in the crowd, barely registering the strong arms that close around her to break her fall. _Neville, bold and brilliant Neville who had come so far from the timid little boy who had come asking for help finding his toad that day on the train. _Someone is yelling her name, breath ghosting against her face as she convulses.  
_Luna, crazy and kind Luna who spoke of things no one could see, was taunted cruelly for it, and yet never let hatred fester in her heart_. "Granger! Granger, can you hear me? Hermione! Someone get a professor!" _Ginny, fiery and loyal Ginny with the best bat-bogey hex Hermione had ever seen and the balls to use it-_

Now she's started thinking of then she's not sure if she can stop. She's shuddering and shaking as her lungs react violently to the parasite that seems determined to claw its way up her throat, to twist and curl within her lungs, to bloom with deadly beauty beneath her skin.

She is trapped, drowning amongst vines and thorns and she cannot cut a way through.

All she can see is darkness.

* * *

She comes to about twenty minutes later, staring up at a frieze ceiling.  
"Where am I?" She murmurs, looking around her blearily.  
"You're in the Astronomy Tower." His voice is strained with tension, barely holding back the bite that threatens in his tone.  
"I wanted to take you to the Infirmary but I assumed since you were harebrained enough to lie to me not once, not TWICE, but _THREE TIMES_ this must be incredibly important to you."  
His tone implied the added 'or at least for your sake it had better be'.  
Hermione's mouth opened and closed and then she bit her lip.  
Riddle raised his eyebrows, trying to prompt a response.  
He gives him a half-hearted attempt at one, a painfully quiet, "It is."  
He wonders if she knows exactly what's happening to her.

"You have the Hanahaki disease."  
She laughs, a high and hollow laugh and for a moment he thinks that she thinks he is joking, but the look in her eyes says differently.  
"You think I don't know that?"  
Riddle shakes his head, his whole body trembling as he barely holds back his anger.  
"And do you know that it does to you? You'll die, Granger, slowly and agonisingly."  
His heart misses a beat at the thought of her lying on the floor, flowers sprouting from her mangled and bloodied body. He nearly shudders.  
"Let me perform the spell."

His voice is missing its usual silky quality and his pale eyes are blown wide with worry. She almost thinks he might care. She likes to pretend that he does when things get particularly rough, that he's just a brilliant boy from Slytherin who will go on to do great things.  
_(Terrible, yes, but great-)_

She turns him down. She outright refuses. She has done her research, she knows what that spell will do.  
It will remove the flowers, yes.  
It will save her, yes.  
But it will also remove the memories of the people she loves, memories she cannot afford to lose (especially when trapped in the past with a charismatic young Tom Riddle hovering over her, flashing her his annoyingly charming smiles). She has done her research, she did it the very day that the symptoms appeared. She cannot let anyone perform that spell.  
He is, understandably confused and irritated but he sighs and does the last thing she expects.  
He tries to help her, another way.

"Give me the name. Give me the name of the bloody Gryffindor you've given your heart to and we'll fix this. He'll be besotted with you by the end of the week."  
_He tries to convince her to give up the name because goddamnit he will douse the prat's evening meal in Amortentia if that's what it takes to save her.  
_"I ca-" she frowns. "Gryffindor?"  
In response he reaches into his robes, throwing red and gold petals flecked with blood- her blood- into the air above her head. She watches them rain down like macabre confetti.  
She sits there, frozen, and then he snaps her back to the present.  
"Hermione, _please_. Give me the name." He pleads.  
She shakes her head again and he bunches his hands into fists, breathing heavily through gritted teeth. Anyone else and he'd just take them to the infirmary and perform the spell, saving everyone a load of heartache. Anyone else and he'd just hex the name from their lips. Anyone else and he'd-  
He wouldn't be trying so hard. He wouldn't care.  
Tom storms from the tower, leaving Hermione in her circle of red and gold petals.

(He waits at the bottom, listening for coughing in case he has to run back up to get her but after a few minutes, the only thing he hears are quiet sobs. He stays anyway, until he hears her footsteps coming down the stairs and then silently, he leaves).

* * *

At the next meeting with his Knights, every person in the room can feel the tension in the air. It is tangible, thick enough to cut with a knife.  
He and Hermione glare at each other and the knights wonder how it came to be this way, how Hermione had weaselled her way up through the ranks to a position where she was unafraid of Tom's quiet and was spared from his cruciatus.  
There have been a few sly suggestions of course, each silenced as quickly as they came.  
Riddle does not suffer fools lightly.

She coughs only once and Riddle's fist still clenches tight. The knights look back and forth between them but for the life of them they cannot figure out what on Earth is happening between the pair.  
At the end of the meeting, Riddle orders them all out, still glaring furiously at the girl who is (usually) his favourite follower.

She hasn't failed him once. (She performs tasks with ease that all his other followers fail to complete).  
_She won't let him perform the spell._

She's a brilliant duelist and due to her quick and cunning mind she came so very close to beating them in their last practice duel even as sick as she is. (Not that anyone but him realises that).  
_She won't give him a name_.

She's funny and never fails to bring a smile to his face when she tries. (He's smiled more in the past few months than ever before in his life).  
_If he does not do something, she will die._

Riddle sits by the fireplace, staring at the fire.  
He tells himself he shouldn't care.  
_(He does)._

* * *

They're in the Great Hall.  
The candles are out, the hall lit instead by a line of jack o' lanterns that runs around perimeter of the room. Festoons of bat-shaped paper chains adorn the walls and ceilings as well as vibrantly orange streamers.  
Hermione sits down across the table from Riddle and nearly flinches when she sets eyes on him.  
He's devilishly handsome in the low lighting, the warm glow of the lanterns hitting him from behind, accentuating sharp cheekbones and lending colour to his normally alabaster skin. He makes a show of sighing as his Knights dig into the sweet foods with gusto, scooping handfuls of candy from the black cauldrons on the table, but she sees the smile that fights its way onto his face. He looks more alive than she's ever seen him before. More human.  
Their eyes link and for one moment, they stay there, green eyes searching brown.  
Then a ghost brushes her from behind and the spell is broken.  
The Fat Friar apologises but she waves it away with a smile and a proclamation of 'no harm done'. From the scowl she sees disappear from Riddle's face as she turns back to face him, one would assume differently.  
She frowns at him and he offers her a half-smile in response.

Hermione decides to think nothing of it and go back to looking at the hall.  
It's one of the few Hallow'een Feasts that she's been to without some crazy chaos happening to disturb it (but it's early yet, so who's to say that none will occur?).  
First year, the troll in the bathrooms.  
_There's a rustling in her chest and a funny itching in her throat.  
_Second year, they attended St Nicholas' death day party and Mrs Norris got petrified.  
_She has to stop thinking of them, she has to get them out of her head before they kill her.  
_Riddle is watching her closely.  
Third year, Sirius Black broke into the castle and slashed the Fat Lady's painting as he attempted to hunt down Pettigrew.  
She's coughing now, quietly, but Riddle is giving her that _'I-Told-You-So'_ glare and just like that, she stops thinking of them.

They argue fiercely and furiously, Hermione working off her fear into anger and Riddle doing the same until people turn and look and Hermione storms away from the table leaving a seething Riddle behind her.  
_The troll, Sir Nicholas, Ms Norris-  
__Harry and the ghosts and Ron at the party-  
__The defaced portrait, Ron shaking and pale-faced in the common room-  
__The goblet of fire spewing three names from the flames and then a forth-  
__Harry, Ron, Dumbledore, Luna, Neville, the other Weasleys and Remus and Sirius all of them smiling and joking and grinning, all alive and well and wonderful-_

She doesn't realise she's collapsed until her knees hit the floor.  
Shoes are slapping the stone and the lights are suddenly so bright. Someone is pulling her close as she chokes on the product of her heartbreak, as she spews up the evidence of her affections for the people who are not yet born to love her back.  
Someone is speaking. Their voice is scared, desperate and they are asking- no, begging her for something. She cannot reply...

* * *

...Riddle was out of his seat and running across the hall the moment he saw her go down. Her whole body was shaking uncontrollably as she hacked and coughed and out of the corner of his eye he saw Dumbledore motion for the lights to come on. Tom is pulling her into his arms as the hall is restored to brightness, the students crying out as they're temporarily blinded.  
He begs her for the name- names(?)- holding her almost tenderly as she sobs and vomits and shakes, just shakes.  
He hates seeing her like this. He can hardly bear it but he cannot bring himself to perform the spell.  
Instead he begs for the frozen teachers to help as she coughs up a garden of flowers onto their chests.  
She coughs up red and gold carnations, purple periwinkles, a fantastical pink flower he has no name for and forget-me-nots. She hacks up tiger lilies, the orange pollen staining both their clothes, and wolfsbane and even a sprig of Dog's Mercury. They are sitting on a carpet of countless stray petals. The whole world is frozen and only they are aware of the tragedy playing out.

He's shaking now, too, wiping flecks of blood from her lips with his thumb, begging her to let him save her.  
She refuses.  
"Please Hermione, just let me do it. Please, I'm begging you."  
She has never heard him sound so desperate- no one breathing has- and it's unlikely that she ever will again.  
"I can't Riddle- I can't forget them."  
Her voice is barely a whisper and he strains his ears to hear it. He could pretend that he didn't, so so easily. He could save her.  
He rests his forehead against hers and she relaxes just marginally.  
Then he twitches his wand in his hand.  
_"__Stupefy."  
_He pulls away just in time to see her eyes go wide, betrayal pooling in their depths before she goes limp in his arms, the coughing finally stopping.

Tom Riddle stands and sweeps her up in his arms.  
The room seems to stutter back into life, students whispering, faces pale, and the professors jump to their feet. He passes her to the witch in the white robes of the Hospital wing.  
"Take her to the infirmary. She's been suffering from Hanahaki disease but refuses to name the perpetrators. If you cannot find out who they are, well- you know what spell to use."  
The witch- Pomfrey- does as he asks and just like that, Hermione has vanished from sight.

He sits down at the table as if in a daze and finishes his dinner while ignoring all questions fired at him.  
He feels the burning gaze of someone on him- Dumbledore no doubt- and cooly ignores it, washing down his pumpkin pie with a glass of water.  
Riddle leaves the table without so much as a nod to his knights and while a few students try to follow him, still yelling questions, they quickly give up and return to the hall when he keeps going, clearly intent on ignoring them. He departs into the darkness, into the depths of Hogwarts where the portraits are silent and the lights are low. His movements are swift and uncompromising. His face is set in a cold mask.

He eventually comes to a stop in front of the wall that hides the Room of Requirement and he pulls a crisp folded page from his robes, running his finger down the ragged edge. He begins to pace.  
_I need a room.  
__I need a room that will let me perform the ritual.  
__I need a room that no one can find._

He stops as a door appears, the wall rippling as stone transforms to wood.  
Tom's hand reaches out to brush the wood-  
"TOM!"  
He snatches his hand back, fingers curling into a fist at the sudden noise.  
He spins, wariness clear on his face as he takes in the form of the person who called for him.  
It's Dumbledore.

The wizard faces him, robes swirling around his ankles, staring at him with an expression wavering between distrust and curiosity.  
"Professor Dumbledore."  
"Tom."  
They eye each other warily for a moment.  
"Miss Granger-" Dumbledore pauses, not missing the worry that flashes momentarily in Tom's dark eyes.  
"Yes? What about her?"  
Dumbledore sighs.  
"How long have you known?"  
Riddle fights the urge to twirl his wand between his fingers, his favourite nervous tick.  
"I first noticed the symptoms a month ago. I was only sure a few weeks ago."  
He sees the corners of the transfiguration professor's mouth begin to twitch into a frown and hastily adds (with a thin layer of irritation), "She begged me not to perform the spell, she said the memories of the people were too important."  
And just like that he sees the beginnings of a twinkle form in the wizard's eye. Tom hates the twinkling.

"I see. Then I suppose I ought to make sure Miss Granger doesn't lose those memories before we can find out exactly who's in them."  
Tom frowns, eyes flickering to the door and the meddling professor's infernal twinkling grows more pronounced.  
"Good luck, Tom."  
And just like that, the endless distrust glittering in Dumbledore's eyes has faded to mere wariness and a great deal of amusement. If Tom had realised that earning the Professor's trust would be as simple as helping a young witch in peril out, he would've done it a long time ago.  
(Though he had, time after time and yet none of his 'good deeds' had ever affected the professor in the way this one seemed to be).  
The young wizard scowls after Dumbledore's retreating form, cursing the higher power that placed Albus Dumbledore in a position of authority at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  
(Though if he is perfectly, completely honest, there might be a small part of him that is grateful that the all-too-perceptive Professor has seen through him yet again.)

He opens the door and strides inside, pulling the paper up into his field of vision.  
He brushes the yellowing parchment with his thumb, scanning the information from the top to the bottom before tucking it back into his robes.  
Riddle rolls up his sleeves and casts a quick glance around the room.  
Everything is in place.

He reaches for a bottle of thick red power, uncorking it with a pop and begins to pour it into his palm. He spits in it and the texture becomes almost clay-like. He lays the parchment detailing the instruction in the centre of the room and begins to daub the crimson paste on the smooth black stone he stands on, creating spiralling patterns and runes that his eyes trace and his brain translates, speaking in guttural tones unusual for his normally silky voice. He places a silver goblet in the centre on top of the parchment.

Tom then watches through the window as the moon reaches its apex and then from an array of items the room has offered him, he selects a blade. He draws it from his sheath with almost inhuman grace and drags it gently across the palm of his hand, blood bubbling quickly from the cut.  
He clenches his hand. Blood travels down his hand to drip from the base of his fist, landing in the cup, turning the clear water red.  
Finally, as the moonlight strikes his sharp form, accentuating every shadow, every cutting line of his face, he whispers the final words of the ritual.  
The rim of the cup catches alight and furls of red smoke fill the air.  
He grins.  
"Now let's see... What poor soul are you hiding from me, Hermione Granger?"

The smoke convalesces into a crowd of people, edges slightly blurred but their features clear. Most wander at the edges of the room, dull, faraway looks in their eyes.  
He doesn't recognise any of them.  
One recognises him, though.

Her eyes are wild when they land on him, afraid. Like a strike of lightning she moves with uncanny speed, drawing a wand made of smoke from her sleeve. He's not sure if projections can cast but he doesn't want to antagonise her, just in case. Tom observes her.  
She's wearing a lumpy, badly knitted cardigan with an array of buttons of different sizes. Not robes, and yet clearly a witch. Magic hums in her very being, glitters in her eyes. She's brave (or just stupid), he'll give her that, for she's clearly terrified of him (for what reason he can't determine- he's never met the girl before), but still faces him.  
His brow furrows and he carefully circles left, keeping her just far away enough as she stalks towards him.

"You." She says, arm only trembling a little.  
"Me." Riddle replies with a neutral tone, figuring out if he can play her fear to his advantage.  
Time is running out and he needs the quickest solution he can find.  
"What is this? A memory? A Horcrux? Are you back to finish what you started?" She asks.  
His eyes fly wide at the mention of his Horcruxes- _how does she know about them, what does she know about them-_ but somehow, he keeps his cool.  
He should hex her, his Slytherin self-preservation screams. Hex and jinx and torture her until she gives him everything. But he can't. She's an illusion, not corporeal, and even considering the thought might clue her in, send her running away, screaming.  
He will track her down later, find out whatever she knows about him. Find out why his smirk, his smile, a twitch of his lips sends that wild look across her face.  
But now, right now, he- Granger- needs her help.

He doesn't have time for threats, not pleas, and he doubts anything he says will convince her of his innocence when she looks at him like that. When she accuses him of making Horcruxes. When she stares like she can see the darkness creeping underneath his skin. He needs to shock her to her core.  
Tom Marvolo Riddle, Lord Voldemort, sinks to his knees before the odd witch and bows his head.  
"I need your help."  
She doesn't lower her wand.

He looks up.  
"There's a girl. She's dying. Apparently she knows you, and apparently she needs to get back to you. If she doesn't, she'll die."  
He doesn't mention the fact that he'll have to drug them all with a love potion as much as the thought makes his skin crawl-_ his mother, his powerful mother, why would she lower herself to the point where she begged a muggle for scraps of affection, begged him and stole it from him-  
_The girl watches him carefully, but the fear of him has lessened and he can see a new one take its place-  
Fear for Her.  
"I can help you, Tom Riddle."

By midnight he has answers and by dawn he has his solution.  
It doesn't take long to get Abraxas to give him what he wants, especially when he tells him that _her_ life is on the line.  
_Something still nags at him, begging him to just perform the spell so he can have her- brilliant and bold and daring- all to himself._

He wonders what would happen if he listened.

* * *

Slowly, her eyes open. She's staring at a ceiling, white fabric fluttering around in the edges of her vision. She sits up, looking around. She's in the infirmary, a white divider pulled neatly around the bed to hide her from prying eyes.  
It's been a long time since she felt so calm. So at peace. Since her mind was so clear.  
Then she coughs again, just a small one, and a few petals flutter to meet her palm.  
Relief hits her like a tidal wave.  
_He listened.  
_She isn't quite sure how she feels about that.

Her every breath wheezes out of her chest and her lungs are still heavy in her chest but she remembers them, she remembers them all.  
She glances at her bedside cabinet.  
There's an envelope. She reaches for it, pulling it into her lap. She opens it, and her fingers curl elegantly around the slip of parchment inside.

_"Give them hell from me._  
_~T.M.R."_

The witch frowns and peeks inside the envelope again. At the bottom, a golden chain pooling around its spherical form, is a time-turner. A true time-turner.  
Her heart races- _where did he get this, how does he know, how much does her know?!_\- but part of her (a guilty, reluctant part of her) is just grateful.  
She smiles sadly at the irony of the note- he's already given them hell, so many times over.

Hermione's fingers hesitate on the time-turner.  
She should stay. She has to complete her mission, she has to turn him or kill him (she already told Harry that time doesn't work that way, but they were desperate), or infiltrate his operation from the inside. She should become another one of those nameless Death Eaters, live until present day, and then kill him and rejoin her world a few decades after she left it.  
But will she live to see the mission through?  
She thinks of her friends, of their brilliant, blinding smiles and she begins to cough again.  
No. No, she won't. And she doesn't have the strength to kill Tom, not right now.

She slips the chain around her neck.

* * *

When Tom returns to his dorm, heart heavy, mind lost in a storm of thoughts, he almost misses the crisp brown envelope sitting on his bedside cabinet. His heartbeat quickens and with trembling hands he snatches it from the wooden surface and tears it open, reading the note inside-

_"Thank you._  
_~H.G."_

He glances back to the table, noting the two shrivelled petals that lie there.  
He smiles.

Then he begins to cough.


End file.
